You understand and live your life as the God (and servant, hero, and villain) of your own personal morality tale

[We live in the world(s) we create]

The human experience of reality is an inter-subjective moral universe.

To really explain it beyond that, I would need to get around to finishing the revisions of a book I started writing in the fall of 2012 and finished an initial draft of in the spring of 2013. But letting go for spans of time does help me to see the bigger picture I was initially grasping at and its implications.

Just to give a little more thought on what I mean, I am stating that our human experience is necessarily limited and subjective, even if we believe and strive for in the ideal of objectivity. Trying to pool our subjective experiences and refine something more objective out of them by mutual confirmation of our experiences is called being inter-subjective. So there's that term layed out.

I've become convinced that the human body, especially the brain, is a part of a larger cycle of information processing that is characteristic of all of life, a process which is cyclical, which has a natural tendency for deviation/error, and a process with mechanisms for either correcting such deviations or incorporating them into the larger pattern of information flow and storage. This information helps regulate organisms and ecosystems, and is involves in all life functions.

In the human mind this information processing gives rise to a narrative defining an individual and their identity, as well as other objects such as other people. These are all set in a framework or landscape with a history and with rules predicting how they will react and interact. This narrative is informed by our personal experiences, both those involving other humans and those which do not. This sense of "how things are" is complimented by the development of a sense of "how things ought to be". The distance between these two is a tension that creates moral unease. Morality is like a magnetic force trying to draw these two sense together.

It may not be apparent at first how fundamentally this influences how you see and experience the world, but try to really pay attention to why you act and feel the way you do in specific circumstances. These things are hard to notice because they are so familiar to us that they become invisible. But try to look for that sense of "But that's just (not) how things are..." and "This is (or isn't) how things ought to be..." The best time to look is when you are particularly pleased or really upset with something. Ask yourself why and search for the is/ought involved.

When you get some experience with this, you will start to see the moral undertones behind more and more actions, initiating and framing what people say and do. But that isn't all!

We are like unto Gods

I've also observed that we are the Gods our universes, our minds the authors of our narratives. We subconsciously try to make everything fit our own mish-mashed, patched together, not quite entirely coherent worldview. Our narrative written and edited and extended by our experiences and the influences of other people. Thus other objects outside of what we consider to be our self, especially other people, must fit into the categories and roles the narrative permits and predicts. If it doesn't some form of conflict or dissonance arises.

Not sure what I mean? I mean that every conversation you have is with yourself. The other person is more or less a prop onto which you project your sense of reality. If the other person has the proper part of their narrative very similar to the same part in yours, you won't notice since you both permit and expect the same kinds of potential responses. But what about when that isn't the case?

Haven't you been so surprised or confused by what you've heard that you could actually feel your brain searching for a way to figure out what the other person just said? Have you had that sense that there must be similar sounding words which would actually fit the conversation, so you must have misheard the other person?

Or perhaps you are familiar with the conversation in which someone takes one little thing you write or say and reads so much into it that isn't there and that you didn't intend that you are shocked by how far off they are and their reaction to your attempt at communication? Don't worry, you've done it too. Quite often.

And then there's the person that literally just carries on the entire conversation in a virtual monologue, in which case your role as a prop to allow them to talk to themselves is obvious. Nor can we leave out your own internal dialogue with yourself, which may or may not be vocalized.

This is all part of the constantly recycled individually mental narratives that are part of larger socially shared cultural narratives. And these in turn are the human elaboration of information processing loops of simpler organisms which also collect and react to information painting a picture of their internal status and the external world.

Conflict and suffering and social media narcissism

I doubt that if you've followed what I'm saying so far that you need me to do much to indicate how this relates to human personal and collective suffering, to internal and external conflict. When narrative elements inside our heads or between what's in my head and your head are incompatible, conflict arises.

Let's take the case of when this happens inside your own mind. In some cases this might lead to rejecting one element or the other (rejecting one belief in favor of another), to finding a way to keep the elements separate and ignore their incompatibility (cognitive dissonance), or creatively combining the two into a new perspective or seeing a third possibility lying beyond them.

The same thing can happen when the conflict is between two or more minds, only then things are more complicated when it comes to resolving or living with the differences. A new seed may form for a collective understanding between one crowd giving them the basis for a new shared narrative, further isolating them from others in their community. They see the world a differently, interpret events differently, and so on. If this trend continues, agreement between the two sides becomes more difficult.

Take the example of some conservatives in the United States who reject climate change, believe that their interpretation of Christianity should be the civil religion of their country, won't accept any gun regulation despite ever more frequent mass shootings, and deny things like evolution and (the human contribution) to worldwide climate change. That ideology is part of a narrative that has been emerging for decades and drawing from different social, religious, and political sources. But it doesn't have iron boundaries. Some people are drawn to it to varying degrees, and hence they cluster around it. Some embrace 75% of the ideology, some 85%, some 100%. And that's if we assume that the exact composition of the ideology is constant and stable.

My own sense is that this particular ideology was much more variable in what it stood for and more diffuse in the internal agreement of its members, and that perceived social pressure from those outside of the ideology is causing a contraction. More and more people near the center are drawing closer together in just what it is they believe, and are less tolerant of those who are on the margins.

This is only one example, and this phenomenon isn't limited to a certain kind of politics, or to politics. Or to really larger groups and widespread social movements. But if you strongly agree or disagree with the ideology I've described, which is associated with the political movement known as The Tea Party, you may have wondered whether people who feel differently that you are living in a different world. Well, they are!

And suffering, yes, well, think about it. All human narratives have that moral element at their core. Whether it is you judging yourself or someone else doing the honors, the narrative tells you "This is who you can be if you want to be a good, well-thought of, decent person." It also gives reasons why people fail. If the narrative emphasizes individual qualities and choice, which happens more often and more strongly in egocentric societies (look it up if you haven't seen that one before and its converse -- sociocentric), then basically you are a bad person because you suck. Either you were born to suck, you chose to suck, or a little of both.

This saves so much time when judging yourself and others. If you are gay, just stop being gay or control you nasty unnatural impulses. If you are unemployed or underemployed, you must lack ambition, education, or intelligence. So take that all of you lazy, ignorant, dumb slackers with college degrees who are working at or just above minimum wage after completing a rigorous course of study lasting four or more years!

As for how my way of seeing human behavior sheds light on social media narcissism, I am guessing you can grasp that.  And how it plugs back into what has been covered so far. The internet is another platform for this larger evolutionary pattern of information processing of which humans are a part. Similar perhaps to the first groups of individual cells that began more integrated and efficient modes of communication leading to the earliest multi-cellular organisms.

OK, well, if you want more then you'll have to hope I actually finish rewriting my manuscript and send it in to a publisher.

Quick Glimpse at Globalization

[Storm rising over the city]

I'll be covering globalization this week in one of my courses after introducing it last week. Globalization is a really complex issue, so there won't be time to look at all of it. Instead we'll briefly sort through a couple of main themes. Here's an overview if you keep hearing about that term and are curious. I refer a few times to a textbook I sometimes use (though not this semester) because I find the presentation or examples used by the author for certain aspects of globalization helpful.

Brief History

While there may have been (semi-)globalized economic systems in the past, our present version begins with the colonization of various societies by Western European powers from the 1600s through the early 1900s, including the colonization and integration of larger parts of North America by the former British colonies that became known as the United States of America. The exploitation or outright seizure of resources by those colonized or displaced helped to fuel the economies of these emerging Western powers while creating conditions of social, economic, and political tension in the colonies themselves which has in turn contributed to economic and political instability in many former colonies over the centuries, especially during the 20th century. While the United States and others attained liberation in the 1700s, many colonies in what is known today as Latin America weren't liberated until the 1800s. Asian and African colonies remained under European control until well into the 1900s (the scramble to colonize Africa was still going on in the first decades of the 20th century).

Those who favor modernization theory claim that the problems of former colonies are either the natural growing pains of economic development or are caused by failure to adopt certain political and economic institutions favored by the Western powers. These developing nations need guidance and funding to modernize and grow like the US and Western Europe, so institutions such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, largely funded and controlled by those same Western powers, provide economic advice and loans to help reduce poverty around the globe. Many countries are unable to pay back their loans and are saddled with debt, requiring that the terms of their loans be renegotiated. This renegotiation frequently comes with strings attached concerning efforts to combat what the lenders see as waste and corruption. 

However, some of these terms follow neoliberal ideals which see any constraints on doing business and making profit as obstructions to economic growth. Under the modern neoliberal view, markets should exist for practically every area of human life, a world in which everything becomes a commodity. This includes things such as fresh air, clean water, and environmental conservation. Markets and the market value of commodities, as determined by consumer demand and the availability of a particular item, are seen as the best guide for human activity since humans are rational actors who will behave according to enlightened self-interest. Anything truly bad or destructive will be weeded out because it is impractical, unsustainable, or offense to a sufficient number of consumers. By increasing the scope of markets and ramping up commodification (turning things into commodities -- things to be bought and sold in the marketplace), economic growth will lead to increased prosperity for all, which is turn is supposed to inherently promote democratic ideals and greater individual autonomy and choice. The best chance for solutions to human problems comes from unleashing the creativity of inventors as entrepreneurs.

Critics of neoliberal policies, such as those who favor development theory, suggest that institutions such as the IMF and World Bank are misguided or inefficient and not addressing the roots of the problems generating poverty but rather are reinforcing them. The stronger critics suggest that while such institutions and their controlling member states claim to be in favor of reducing poverty, their true agenda is to continue the economic exploitation of other nations by colonizing or re-colonizing many parts of the world by economic means. The political and economic instability of the former colonies in places like Africa are attributed largely to continued interference by Western Powers. 

The broad Marxian critique of unrestrained Capitalism is also regularly applied to institutions and laws favoring neoliberal policies. These policies include cutting public welfare or subsidies supporting education, healthcare, and local (as opposed to international) economic activity. Instead, austerity policies are favored to reduce government spending. Economic activity favoring international trade, such as allowing increased foreign investment, lifting environmental protection policies, and producing goods that can be sold on the international market (rather than being used in country) are also promoted. Those opposed to the neoliberal view of economic growth claim that these measures are cruel and frequently counter-productive, making it harder for such poorer nations to get out of debt. Criticisms of such policy call for debt forgiveness, while several governments in South America, for instance, have turned more toward a socialist stance (public or government control or ownership of national resources and spending) by privatizing things such as oil fields and placing heavier restrictions on foreign investment.

The World Systems Theory was developed to try to place such competing views in context. Core nations (also known as first world or developed countries) control most of the economic capital and influence the focus of economic activity, whereas peripheral nations (a.k.a. developing or third world countries) have less influence and tend to provide labor and raw resources at low cost. Semi-peripheral nations occupy the space in between. The issue for this view isn't which policies promote economic growth or the welfare of people, but how the global economy is interconnected.

Climate Scientists Call For Radical Rethinking of Global Economy

I wonder how many people will see this or ponder it. I will have something on globalization in the near future. But at 29 minutes this is enough for now.

Be well.